My Urban Refugee Friends

Two years ago, the term 'urban refugee' would have meant very little to me.  Like many, I had always associated refugees with rural camps in Ethiopia or Afghanistan or the Balkans, people internally or regionally displaced due to war, famine or natural disaster.  My 18 months in Bangkok has given me quite an education on the reality of modern refugees.  And a lot of dear new friends.

My Vietnamese friends have fled their homeland either for their religious or political faith.  Some are Christians and missionaries brutally persecuted by the government for their evangelical faith.  Others are democracy activists oppressed for their opposition to Vietnam's Communist government.  A few were targets of persecution because of their past ties to the US military in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago, including middle-aged men who face discrimination as AmerAsian children of US servicemen.  A common factor among my gentle and fun-loving Vietnamese friends is their kindness and generosity - and their love of pho.  If you've never had a tasty bowl of Vietnam's national dish you're missing out. 

My Nepali friends are remarkable people.  Most of them were young men when they fled Nepal's civil unrest and conflict between the Maoist rebels and Nepal's government.  Though the conflict has died down a bit since they left their homeland - some of them 7 years ago - the Maoist problem in rural Nepal in particular rages on, making it extremely dangerous for these men to return home.  So they wait for refugee resettlement in Bangkok, living on the fringes of Thai society eking out a living as best they can.  To a person, my Nepali refugee friends in Thailand are gracious and kind, patiently waiting through the endless months of UNHCR delays.  I've never been to Nepal, but these humble people are their country's best diplomacy imagineable.  You have to meet my Nepali friends.

I can't capture the spirit of my Sri Lankan refugee friends in one easy paragraph.  Survivors of one of the world's nastiest conflicts, ethnically Tamil refugees have flooded southeast Asia, including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and down to Australia.  Sri Lankans in Thailand face difficult discrimination, the color of their skin making them easy targets for Thai Immigration Police in a country where they are illegal immigrants despite their refugee or asylum-seeker status.  Most of the Sri Lankans I know are locked up in the Immigration Detention Center, some of them for several years, as they await resettlement.  They are desperate but calm, angry but kind, frustrated but hopeful as they long for a new life.  Because of the politics involved with Sri Lankan refugee, I have been denied access to my Sri Lankan friends and clients in the IDC for more than 8 months, but I get word to and from them as I can.  Many compassionate foreigners who visit Sri Lankan refugees have been deeply touched by the plight of these lovely people who to me should be considered one of the prides of their country. 

I could go on and on.  My Congolese friends are brilliant, many of them linguistic geniuses including my newest friend who loses track of the languages he speaks at somewhere from 8 to 10.  While the world looks down at such men and their families - poor, jobless, stateless and living in crowded, cheap apartments with little to do each day - they are amazing people, survivors of what is undoubtedly the world's nastiest conflict, the Congolese civil war, who made a living in a country that is unwelcoming to poor Africans.  My Pakistani refugeee friends, predominantly Ahmadiyan Muslims discriminated against by the Muslim majority in Pakistani, faced bombings and legalized killing in their homeland.  Some of them are fluent English speakers, and articulate quite clearly the difficulties they have living in Thailand where they cannot legally work or go to school.  So their children in particular suffer, growing up without an education and sinking deeper every month deeper into the frustration of the unwanted and neglected. 

And then there are the Somalis.  Imagine coming from a country that has not had a functioning government since 1991, a decimated and impoverished land known today only for Somali pirates and as a growing base for Al-Qaeda.  A recent meeting with 30 Somalis, talking about their concerns of being arrested and their desires for their children to have an education and to gain skills while they wait for resettlement, showed them to be insightful, forward-thinking people who could make great leaders for their country if they had the chance.  Incredibly frustrated at one moment, hopeful and visionary at the next, the Somali refugee assure me that their country would be in good hands if the everyday man were in charge rather than the warlords.  The world is full of remarkable, brilliant people who simply need a chance, who would flourish if freed from persecution and oppression. 

Bangkok is a remarkable, complex city.  When I first visited 9 years ago, I had no idea that under the cosmopolitan diversity of the city there was another layer of hidden and neglected people, thousands of urban refugees from around the world who, attracted to the graciousness and openness of the Thai people, came here in search of a new life.  These refugees likely didn't know what they were getting into when they came here, not knowing that Thailand has not signed the UN Convention on refugees and therefore considers them to be illegal immigrants, not understanding the difficulties that the darkest-skinned among them in particular would face.  But they came, fleeing a variety of miseries and persecutions, hoping against hope for a better life.  Many of them face extremely difficult circumstances here, everything from the indignity of the IDC to the crushing boredom and frustration of being unemployed and unschooled, of simply waiting around.  What could happen if these people had a way to flourish and thrive here in Bangkok? 

Thailand has a way of confounding its critics and analysts, just as it has confounded and inspired and thrilled me.  9 years ago, I knew nothing of Bangkok as an international refugee hub.  When I moved to Bangkok 18 months ago, I knew very little of the urban refugee issue, intending to focus my efforts on land and human trafficking issues.  But beginning with a simple visit to a Nepali friend locked away at the IDC, through a year-long tour of refugee tenements across Bangkok led by my refugee insider friends, I've come to spend a lot of my time with the urban refugees in Bangkok.  They are my work, they are much of how I spend my time, and they are window into learning more about the world.  But most of all, they've become my friends.  What an unexpected surprise in my Thailand journey. 

P.S. I know that you can't capture an entire nation with one or two adjectives, and my description of refugees as 'kind' or 'gracious' or 'beautiful' could be taken by some as being simplistic or trite or condescending.  That is not my intention.  I understand that the world is complex, that entire countries cannot be reduced to a stereotype.  But I have tried in this brief essay to capture the spirit of the men and women and children that I have befriended here in Thailand, and all of my descriptions are accurate as to what I have experienced.  I encourage everyone to travel widely to overcome stereotypes and move beyond generalities and to embrace the complexities, nuances and paradoxes of the world.  What I think you'll find will blow your mind, challenge some prior assumptions, and give you new ways to embrace and serve the world.  And among urban refugees you'll find some of the most friendly, gracious and generous people you can imagine.  That's not a stereotype or simplification - that is the simple truth about my friends. 

Comments

[John Quinley]

Thanks Troy for your thoughts and experiences. Kim and I agree after working with Laotian, Iraqi, Burmese, and now Pakistani refugee/asylum seekers. Our hearts have grown by knowing them all.

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